‘News’ is published and circulated in the physical and online world, meaning that it is no longer just the prerogative of monolithic corporations such as Fox News and the BBC; it can now be created by anyone across the globe with access to the world wide web, and cannot be authenticated or filtered by government or mainstream broadcasters as prerequisite to publication. ‘Fake news’ is one result of this pattern. The aim of my research is to demonstrate that modern ‘fake news’ has altered the electorate's relationship to current affairs, and has affected the democratic process by fabricating erroneous data and disseminating substandard political journalism. I will undertake this research as fake news is a development that is undoubtedly still relevant, and its effect on seismic events such as Brexit and the 2016 US Presidental Election is still being contended. Therefore, its influence needs to be scrutinized by a student like myself who is studying historical and contemporary publishing practices. The outcome of my independent study, which will take the form of a 6000-word academic essay, will be to elucidate the effect that fake news has on western politics, by collating and examining the work of journalists and thinkers, such as Matthew D’Ancona and James Ball, writing in a ‘post-truth’ age. Therefore, the significance of my work will be a dissection of the role ‘fake news’ now plays in the media market, whether for good or ill.
Permanent link to this resource: https://doi.org/10.24384/000481
Gemmill, James
Faculty of Technology, Design and Environment\School of Arts\Oxford International Centre for Publishing
Year: 2018
© The Author(s) Published by Oxford Brookes University